Cirrus – SR22 – IFR – RNAV

In February 2018 I did a few familiarisation flights with Mike Cahill in his newly acquired (second hand) Cirrus SR22 to practise cross country flying and use of the avionics and GPS/auto pilot.

MSF ready to depart

On this occasion I flew IFR from Redcliffe to Kingaroy and back via the Sunshine Coast. It was a perfect morning – about 25C with blue skies and a few puffy clouds around and almost no wind. We climbed out of Redcliffe to 8000 ft and tracked west. 25 miles from Kingaroy I started descending and tracked over to the southern RNAV (GPS) approach for runway 34, did a holding pattern at Sierra Echo at 5100ft AMSL and then used the GPS to fly the approach.

I carried out a missed approach at 2000ft AMSL (500ft above ground) over the threshold and climbed out to 3700ft, then set up the northern RNAV for runway 16 via November Delta. There were a couple of other aircraft doing similar exercises but air traffic control kept us separated.

We landed on RWY16 and taxied to the parking area. After a short break and a chat to a couple who’d also flown up to Kingaroy for the day, we took off again, climbed to 7000ft and tracked direct to Sunshine Coast Airport.

Maroochydore from 7000ft

We passed overhead and then tracked direct to Redcliffe, with air traffic control stepping us down as we passed Bribie Island. Landing at Redcliffe we filled the tanks to tabs plus 30 litres and then taxied out again for 6 circuits with touch and go to get a better feel for the landing. The plane is actually great to fly and lands really smoothly. Even though it has a fixed undercarriage it has a TAS (True Air Speed) of 165 knots and endurance of 2.5 hours flight with 4 adults plus baggage so it should be a great touring aircraft.